Unheard Music Series

[ghost of miles]

This one's a favourite of mine:

Mental Cruelty (The 1960 Jazz Soundtrack)

(UMS238CD) $13.00 

In 1960, an astonishing jazz ensemble was convened by Swiss pianist George Gruntz to create a soundtrack for the Hannes Schmidhauser film MENTAL CRUELTY. The group included bebop innovator Kenny "Klook" Clarke on drums and Belgian saxophonist Barney Wilen, two of the most swinging and sensitive musicians on the planet.

Though the dark, lyrical, mysterious soundtrack was initially released on a 10-inch EP, legal difficulties led to its being recalled, and the few copies that were sold became incredibly valuable collectors items. Now, for the first time, the session is issued in its full glory, including several previously unreleased tracks.

Mine too, Ubu--a nice little gem, that Gruntz is.

[AmirBagachelles]

good thread here, thanks. I dig the Tom Prehn Quartet disc. I see they have issued more from the Danish scene. I always want to try another after I spend time with the UMS titles. I would be curious if Corbett has tried to access and license anything from the vaults of the big conglomerates.

Digging the Luther Thomas' Funky Donkey wild ride in low/mid fidelity. Subsequent Banana is also fun but scarred beyond belief by "vocalist" Carol Marshall. Big minus.

Edited April 29, 2005 by AmirBagachelles

[Gary]

I can recommend this recent addition to the series, a fine CD

[.:.impossible]

I'll throw in an endorsement for the MENTAL CRUELTY disc, and for the COUNTRY BRASS disc that Jim has well-described. It is an alter-reality in music. Primitive, like a horse and plow.

Still curious about the Hamid Drake criticism. Bennink sure seems to be a fan. I don't hear much to criticize personally, unless its a matter of taste. He certainly isn't a one-trick pony, though O'Neal's Porch-style pocket seems to be his main bag.

I've passed on that Mount Everest disc so many times, and I always wish I hadn't. Every time. Next time I see it, I'll have to grab it. Y'all convinced me!

[mikeweil]

Ok, the Atavistic disc reissues Dodd's classic 1946 Folkways recordings and includes 20 1954 pieces by two rural brass bands that first came out on a Folkways LP entitled "Music from The South". These brass band cuts are beyond "primitive". It's truly like hearing something from another universe.

That's all I'm going to say (hell, that's all I can say, really), other than that the Dodds material is essential, the liner essay about the brass band stuff is pretty damn interesting, and that the Country Brass Band material will fuck you up big time.

Other than that, you're on your own.

I'm checking out the samples on cduniverse right now. It's....um. Jim's review is fairly accurate. I think the trombone player (at least, I think that's a trombone, though it sounds a little like a buzzsaw) only learned how to play one note. At the time of this recording he was evidently still working on getting that one in tune...

edit: Please tell me that's at least a trombone and not a tenor saxophone. Please. I'm starting to lean toward it being a bass washboard.

Try to find and listen to a recording of ivory trumpet orchestras of the Senufo people of West Africa - same procedure: each player plays rhythmic patterns of only two or three notes to compose interlocking patterns. We speakers of German are lucky to be able to read a scientific report of renowned Austrian jazz scholar, Alfons Michael Dauer, who researched the roots of early jazz in African orchestral traditions - these Folkways recordings are among the sources he analyzed. The intonation of these guys is purely African, not Western, and clearly intentional - they perceive tonalities in a totally different way.

[mikeweil]

I'll throw in an endorsement ..... for the COUNTRY BRASS disc that Jim has well-described. It is an alter-reality in music. Primitive, like a horse and plow.

It's not primitive, but just an entirely different conception of all aspects of music - I thought the times of calling non-Western musical cultures based on different tonal and rhythmic concepts "primitive" was over .....

Edited January 1, 2006 by mikeweil

[.:.impossible]

I'll throw in an endorsement ..... for the COUNTRY BRASS disc that Jim has well-described. It is an alter-reality in music. Primitive, like a horse and plow.

It's not primitive...

A horse drawn plow isn't entirely primitive either Mike. I think you've missed my point. I guess I should have said "Beyond 'primitive', like a horse and plow."

If you are comparing a mortar and pestle with a Cuisinart, it is fair to describe the mortar and pestle as primitive. These two devices are not entirely interchangeable however. In my mind, the mortar and pestle is just as brilliant, if not moreso, than the electric-powered machine that came centuries later. Is a horse drawn plow less brilliant, or less innovative than a tractor plow? I still think the horse drawn plow is the real innovation.

Still, to find a cropper using a horse drawn plow in the age of Industry would seem primitive. This music is the equivalent of a horse drawn plow in a world of tractors. To me, anyway. A lot of the music coming from this region of the United States, even to this day, is primitive when compared to its contemporary. In my mind, this doesn't make it any less valuable, or enjoyable.

[John B]

Still curious about the Hamid Drake criticism. Bennink sure seems to be a fan. I don't hear much to criticize personally, unless its a matter of taste. He certainly isn't a one-trick pony, though O'Neal's Porch-style pocket seems to be his main bag.

I love Hamid's playing and actively seek out his recordings. There is no accounting for taste, but Hamid is a fantastic musician whose playing brings me great enjoyment.

[Kalo]

I'll throw in an endorsement ..... for the COUNTRY BRASS disc that Jim has well-described. It is an alter-reality in music. Primitive, like a horse and plow.

It's not primitive...

A horse drawn plow isn't entirely primitive either Mike. I think you've missed my point. I guess I should have said "Beyond 'primitive', like a horse and plow."

If you are comparing a mortar and pestle with a Cuisinart, it is fair to describe the mortar and pestle as primitive. These two devices are not entirely interchangeable however. In my mind, the mortar and pestle is just as brilliant, if not moreso, than the electric-powered machine that came centuries later. Is a horse drawn plow less brilliant, or less innovative than a tractor plow? I still think the horse drawn plow is the real innovation.

Still, to find a cropper using a horse drawn plow in the age of Industry would seem primitive. This music is the equivalent of a horse drawn plow in a world of tractors. To me, anyway. A lot of the music coming from this region of the United States, even to this day, is primitive when compared to its contemporary. In my mind, this doesn't make it any less valuable, or enjoyable.

Let me just add that, as an amateur cooking enthusiast, I use my Mortar and pestle about ten times more frequently than I employ my Cuisinart.

[.:.impossible]

But do you cook over open fire?

[JSngry]

Ok, the Atavistic disc reissues Dodd's classic 1946 Folkways recordings and includes 20 1954 pieces by two rural brass bands that first came out on a Folkways LP entitled "Music from The South". These brass band cuts are beyond "primitive". It's truly like hearing something from another universe.

That's all I'm going to say (hell, that's all I can say, really), other than that the Dodds material is essential, the liner essay about the brass band stuff is pretty damn interesting, and that the Country Brass Band material will fuck you up big time.

Other than that, you're on your own.

I'm checking out the samples on cduniverse right now. It's....um. Jim's review is fairly accurate. I think the trombone player (at least, I think that's a trombone, though it sounds a little like a buzzsaw) only learned how to play one note. At the time of this recording he was evidently still working on getting that one in tune...

edit: Please tell me that's at least a trombone and not a tenor saxophone. Please. I'm starting to lean toward it being a bass washboard.

Try to find and listen to a recording of ivory trumpet orchestras of the Senufo people of West Africa - same procedure: each player plays rhythmic patterns of only two or three notes to compose interlocking patterns. We speakers of German are lucky to be able to read a scientific report of renowned Austrian jazz scholar, Alfons Michael Dauer, who researched the roots of early jazz in African orchestral traditions - these Folkways recordings are among the sources he analyzed. The intonation of these guys is purely African, not Western, and clearly intentional - they perceive tonalities in a totally different way.

I'll throw in an endorsement ..... for the COUNTRY BRASS disc that Jim has well-described. It is an alter-reality in music. Primitive, like a horse and plow.

It's not primitive, but just an entirely different conception of all aspects of music - I thought the times of calling non-Western musical cultures based on different tonal and rhythmic concepts "primitive" was over .....

I'll throw in an endorsement ..... for the COUNTRY BRASS disc that Jim has well-described. It is an alter-reality in music. Primitive, like a horse and plow.

It's not primitive...

A horse drawn plow isn't entirely primitive either Mike. I think you've missed my point. I guess I should have said "Beyond 'primitive', like a horse and plow."

If you are comparing a mortar and pestle with a Cuisinart, it is fair to describe the mortar and pestle as primitive. These two devices are not entirely interchangeable however. In my mind, the mortar and pestle is just as brilliant, if not moreso, than the electric-powered machine that came centuries later. Is a horse drawn plow less brilliant, or less innovative than a tractor plow? I still think the horse drawn plow is the real innovation.

Still, to find a cropper using a horse drawn plow in the age of Industry would seem primitive. This music is the equivalent of a horse drawn plow in a world of tractors. To me, anyway. A lot of the music coming from this region of the United States, even to this day, is primitive when compared to its contemporary. In my mind, this doesn't make it any less valuable, or enjoyable.

You're both right!

Sorta...

This isn't a recording of the Senufo people of West Africa playing indigenous music on indigenous instruments, it's a recording of two rural, extremely rural, brass bands playing mostly hymns/spirituals on instruments that they obviously used because that's what was available to them and because that's the "format" their environment supported. The concept no doubt is a result of residual Africanisms, but the actual excution of this particular material on these particular instruments betrays a lack of "knowledge" about anything even remotely resmebling "Western knowledge" about same. So in that sense, yeah, it's fair to call it "primitive", in a non-perjorative way.

Except that "primitive" doesn't even begin to describe it.

Seems to me that these guys weren't in the least bit concerned about what they didn't know. Seems to me that, in 1954, years of life in the rural American South would've pretty much eliminated any conscious knowledge of African practices (at least, not that would have been consciously identified as such). So to think that we're hearing an intentional implementation of "native" practices is probably stretching credulity. But - to think that we're not hearing some sort of residual expression of same isn't. But "residual" is about as far as it goes.

The ugly truth is that most of these guys were probably one or two generations, at most three, removed from slavery. And their locale seems to indicate that they were people who stayed close to home once legal slavery was eliminated. So, we're hearing people who survived the hideous cultural brianwashing that accompanied slavery and who, probably, never bothered to get too far out into the rest of the world to see who/what else they could in fact be. Most likely, they stayed put.

What that means to me is that this is music made very much by instinct, and by an instinct that was "neither fish nor fowl" in terms of being either African or American. The Africanisms seem to be entirely residual, as if they were what remained of a failed attempt to airbrush an entire negative into oblivion. The Americanisms seem to be akin to looking at a blurry picture of something that you don't know what it really is, but you think you might have a rough idea, so you go with it and at it as best you can.

It's certainly not "sophisticated" music by any stretch of the imagination, or by any definition of the word. Cats in Africa could do what these guys were likely trying to capture in their sleep, if you know what I mean. And by any "Western" standard, "sophisticated" wouldn't even make the bottom of the longest list of possible adjectives.

But it's exactly that hazy mixture of a world almost totally forgotten with a world almost hardly known that makes this such powerfully fascinating music for me. Out of the African Diaspora, how many people found themselves confronting this strange, cruel new world with exactly this same perspective before finding a stronger, more focused voice? More than we know, I'm sure. Yet how much of this is documented? Work songs? Nah, a perspective had already been formed byt he time they were documented, even the most "primitive" ones. Spirituals? Same thing. Country blues? Forget about it - as raw as some of that stuff was, it still had a clear musical and social perspective. Maybe, maybe some of the early rural African-American string band music that's been documented. but even that's from a different geographical region, one that was not as oppressive as rural Alabama (mountains make for a different, less malevolent, isolation than do forests...).

Of course, this is all speculation on my part. But it's easy for me to see this music as a rare glimpse of what "the picture" of Southern African-American music looked like just before it began to come into focus in all its myriad forms. It's as this is what goes on in somebody's mind just before they start to walk.

Considering all the magnificent steps that proceeded to come once the walking got underway, this glimpse of the pre-walk is nothing short of precious. Like I said, it will fuck you up.

Edited January 2, 2006 by JSngry

[DukeCity]

After listening to some of the samples of the rural brass stuff at the CD Universe site, something occurred to me: Given AllenLowe's observations on the Dexter thread, could it be that these guys actually thought they were playing "Cheesecake", but they were just really, really high?

[Free For All]

Given AllenLowe's observations on the Dexter thread, could it be that these guys actually thought they were playing "Cheesecake", but they were just really, really high?

It's very fuckin' possible!

[mikeweil]

.....

Seems to me that these guys weren't in the least bit concerned about what they didn't know. Seems to me that, in 1954, years of life in the rural American South would've pretty much eliminated any conscious knowledge of African practices (at least, not that would have been consciously identified as such). So to think that we're hearing an intentional implementation of "native" practices is probably stretching credulity. But - to think that we're not hearing some sort of residual expression of same isn't. But "residual" is about as far as it goes.

The ugly truth is that most of these guys were probably one or two generations, at most three, removed from slavery. And their locale seems to indicate that they were people who stayed close to home once legal slavery was eliminated. So, we're hearing people who survived the hideous cultural brianwashing that accompanied slavery and who, probably, never bothered to get too far out into the rest of the world to see who/what else they could in fact be. Most likely, they stayed put.

What that means to me is that this is music made very much by instinct, and by an instinct that was "neither fish nor fowl" in terms of being either African or American. The Africanisms seem to be entirely residual, as if they were what remained of a failed attempt to airbrush an entire negative into oblivion. The Americanisms seem to be akin to looking at a blurry picture of something that you don't know what it really is, but you think you might have a rough idea, so you go with it and at it as best you can.

It's certainly not "sophisticated" music by any stretch of the imagination, or by any definition of the word. Cats in Africa could do what these guys were likely trying to capture in their sleep, if you know what I mean. And by any "Western" standard, "sophisticated" wouldn't even make the bottom of the longest list of possible adjectives.

But it's exactly that hazy mixture of a world almost totally forgotten with a world almost hardly known that makes this such powerfully fascinating music for me. Out of the African Diaspora, how many people found themselves confronting this strange, cruel new world with exactly this same perspective before finding a stronger, more focused voice? More than we know, I'm sure. Yet how much of this is documented? Work songs? Nah, a perspective had already been formed byt he time they were documented, even the most "primitive" ones. Spirituals? Same thing. Country blues? Forget about it - as raw as some of that stuff was, it still had a clear musical and social perspective. Maybe, maybe some of the early rural African-American string band music that's been documented. but even that's from a different geographical region, one that was not as oppressive as rural Alabama (mountains make for a different, less malevolent, isolation than do forests...).

Of course, this is all speculation on my part. But it's easy for me to see this music as a rare glimpse of what "the picture" of Southern African-American music looked like just before it began to come into focus in all its myriad forms. It's as this is what goes on in somebody's mind just before they start to walk.

Considering all the magnificent steps that proceeded to come once the walking got underway, this glimpse of the pre-walk is nothing short of precious. Like I said, it will fuck you up.

Jim, I understand your point - but I think those rural black communities preserved a lot more of the African part than we might imagine. Other parts were certainly lost - like the polyrhythms: that drummer simply bangs the beat, no trace of the intricate African patterns.

Jim: I beg you - please read Gerhard Kubik's "Africa and the Blues" (link) and tell me what you think about it.

I started a thread on this book some two years ago, but nobody here seems to know it. A totally different perspective on African traits in American rural music.

[AllenLowe]

I'm coming in late here - so sorry if I missed some things - the whole idea of African retensions is a complicated and LARGE subject, and very difficult to summarize. Kubik's book is ok but kind of messy in that academic, obscure way - best two books, which document MANY Africanisms, are Lawrence Levine's Black Culture and Black Consciousness and William Pierson's Black Legacy. Both document, in real terms, instance after instance of African retensions in terms of practice and attitude - Levine's is particularly brilliant and wide ranging, talks about everything from African relligious attitudes as they were passed on, to cultural practices. Pierson's is also a real eye opener, even tracing back the original costumes used by the Ku Klux Klan to African Secret Societies - both will convince you, beyond a doubt, that Africa was a major presence in the new world. Another important book is John Szwed's After Africa, a collection of essays that he edited -

Edited January 2, 2006 by AllenLowe

[mikeweil]

Thanks, Allen, for these recommendations!

[.:.impossible]

Mike,

I am still inclined to say that the geographical element is just as important to the sound of these bands as the racial element. This raw, almost untempered collective interplay can still be found on porches and firepits in white areas of Western North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Cumberland areas of Maryland, and these are just the places that I've sat and listened. I imagine the music continues well into South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, and west around the Gulf. The Blue Ridge has a mighty stretch and the Appalachian way of life is alive and, well might not really be the right word, but this way of life is still very much a part of this region of the East coast.

Of course, these people aren't using marching instruments to create their music. They are using guitars, banjos, fiddles, mandolins (if someone is fortunate enough to afford all the strings), and singing. 1954 was not that long ago in some of these areas. And music hasn't "advanced" at the same rate that it has elsewhere. These people aren't reading theses on their roots and musics. They are playing the same songs that their folks were playing in 1954, 1920, etc. and the style hasn't changed all that much.

I know we have some folks on the board here from the Western part of NC and at least one in Charlottesville. I'm sure they've found themselves in some fascinating musical situations not too far from home.

The people play what is around.

Just something else to consider when listening to this music.

[mikeweil]

I am well aware of these things - Kubik tells the story of a musical bow of clearly African descent taken over by white settlers who now consider it their own heritage, etc.

I didn't want to offend anybody, I just think that the African part of the American jazz heritage is still underestimated.

[.:.impossible]

But I'm not really talking about jazz here. The rural bands on this disc sound more like vocal church choirs than jazz, or marching bands to me. I'd be surprised if any of them even liked jazz all that much.

And the white music that I am talking about is more rooted in British descent, though I wouldn't think of arguing that African music didn't influence this music as well. The banjo as an example.

[DukeCity]

Thanks for the recs. on the Kubik, Levine and Pierson books.

I'm curious: Do any of those books (or others you might recommend) address the earliest examples of africans using marching brass instruments?

[JSngry]

I don't need any convincing that African retentions are very real or prevalent (I grew up in the rural American South, remember, and once I "discovered" real African music, culture, etc., a lot of things from my youth came into focus, and a lot of things I was to encounter had a much clearer context). My point is that these retentions are in place in spite of attempts to destroy them by the dominant culture, and that that "in spite of" makes for a different way of "being" than having a conscious knowledge of the links would, both in terms of how the retentions are executed and how the "new world" is percieved. Neither one is exactly "crystal clear", if you know what I mean. How could they be?

And Cary's comments on the "rural"-ness of it all, for both black and white, are spot on, although ever since satellite TV and the internet became more common, the number of people who remain in that type of total isolation seems to be shrinking dramatically (and rapidly). The "old way" is no longer the only way, and you know that's going have an effect. However, if you seek hard enough, you can still find...

[AllenLowe]

I agree - two things I will add -

1) I was recently reading an essay which very convincingly cites numerous slave-era historical sources with very clear references to African retensions - and as the essayist poinst out, slaves were still being imported to the US in the late 18 and early 19th centiries, so Africa was not such a distant memory -

2) Never underestimate the power of an oral culture to disseminate cultural ideas even at a great geographic or chronological distance - I was listening, a few years ago, to a CD which contained a recording by Eddie Anthony, an old black fiddler who recorded in the late 1920s - suddenly, out of nowhere, I heard a bizarre phrase, a way he had of shooting his finger aloing the strings to produce a piercing high note that was, in relation to the harmony of the piece, a complete abstraction - and what floored me was that I had heard, on more than one occasion, the trombonist Dickey Wells play the EXACT same figure in NYC in the late 1970s -

very interesting -

[mikeweil]

Thanks for the recs. on the Kubik, Levine and Pierson books.

I'm curious: Do any of those books (or others you might recommend) address the earliest examples of africans using marching brass instruments?

Well, Dauer does, but his book is in German ...

[John L]

Interesting discussion here.

I bought the Dodds/rural bands disc when it came out. I listened through the rural bands once and never again. I agree with Jim's labeling of the music as "beyond primitive." I generally like, and don't have trouble listening to, a lot of primitive music. However, as Jim warns, listening to this music just "fucked me up."

After this thread, I will go back and try again.

[John L]

Interesting discussion here.

I bought the Dodds/rural bands disc when it came out. I listened through the rural bands once and never again. I agree with Jim's labeling of the music as "beyond primitive." I generally like, and don't have trouble listening to, a lot of primitive music. However, as Jim warns, listening to this music just "fucked me up."

After this thread, I will go back and try again.